Everything Is Love
| label = * Parkwood * Sony * Roc Nation | producer = * Beyoncé (also exec.) * Jay-Z (also exec.) * 808-Ray * Beat Butcha * Boi-1da * Cool & Dre * David Andrew Sitek * D'Mile * Smittybeatz * Derek Dixie * El Michels * Fred Ball * Illmind * Jahaan Sweet * MeLo-X * Mike Dean * Nav * Nova Wav * Pharrell * Sevn Thomas | prev_title = | prev_year = | next_title = | next_year = | misc = }} Everything is Love is a collaborative studio album by American singer Beyoncé and rapper Jay-Z, billed as the Carters, their surnames by marriage. It was released on June 16, 2018, by Parkwood Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment, S.C Enterprises, and Roc Nation. Beyoncé and Jay-Z produced the album alongside a variety of collaborators, including Cool & Dre, Boi-1da, and Pharrell Williams. Additional vocalists recorded for the album include Williams, Quavo, Offset, and Ty Dolla Sign, among others. The hip hop and R&B album explores themes of romantic love, fame, wealth, and black pride. The album was not made public until its release was announced by Beyonce and Jay-Z while onstage at a London concert for their On the Run II Tour and later through their social media accounts. It was originally exclusive to the music distribution service Tidal, before given a wider release on June 18, 2018. In its first week, Everything Is Love debuted at number two on the US ''Billboard'' 200, recording 123,000 album-equivalent units, of which 70,000 were pure album sales. At the 61st Annual Grammy Awards, the album won for Best Urban Contemporary Album, and was nominated Best Music Video for "Apeshit" and Best R&B Performance for "Summer". Recording Plans about a joint album by the couple were announced by Jay-Z during an interview with The New York Times in 2017 when he said that they used "art almost like a therapy session" to create new music. However, since they also worked on their respective albums 4:44 and Lemonade, and Beyoncé's music progressed more rapidly, the project was temporarily stopped. Rumors about the collaborative project began emerging in March 2018 when the couple announced their On the Run II Tour. The majority of the album was recorded at U Arena in Paris; "Friends", "Black Effect" and "Salud!" were recorded at Kingslanding Studios West in Los Angeles, while further recording for "Summer" and "Nice" was done at The Church Studios in London. Beyoncé and Jay-Z co-produced all of the songs on the album themselves, with further producers including Pharrell, Cool & Dre, Boi-1da, Jahaan Sweet, David Andrew Sitek, D'Mile, El Michels, Fred Ball, Illmind, MeLo-X, Mike Dean and Nav. The album was predominantly recorded by Stuart White and Gimel "Young Guru" Keaton. Music and lyrics |width=33%|align=right|style=padding:8px;}} According to Exclaim! journalist Riley Wallace, Everything Is Love is a hip hop album. Mike Wass from Idolator observed a "trap sound and flashy bravado" on the record, while Respect magazine's Jasmine Johnson said it "involves trap with a hint of love". Alexis Petridis found the music more rooted in hip hop than R&B, as did Jogai Bhatt of The Spinoff, who viewed it as a departure from "the sort of contemporary R&B traditionally associated with Beyoncé." Craig Jenkins from Vulture said the singer played the role of an "R&B heavyweight" doubling as a "formidable rapper" throughout the album, showcasing her talents for vocal belting and complex rap cadences. The album contains lyrics about the couple's romantic love, lavish lifestyle, media worship, wealth, black pride and fame; themes that were found to be characteristic of the whole record. Other songs feature the pair singing about their family affairs as well as maintaining their relationship following hardships (i.e. infidelity). Time magazine's Maura Johnston regarded the album as another "blockbuster duet in R&B and hip-hop"; comparable to Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's soul songs from the 1960s and the 1995 Method Man and Mary J. Blige recording "I'll Be There for You/You're All I Need to Get By"; while incorporating contemporary elements in the form of trap beats, critical references to the National Football League and the Grammy Awards, and playing with "public perceptions of the duo's relationship". Jenkins said it extolled African-American entrepreneurship while presenting Jay-Z as "a doting father and husband, an entrepreneur and altruist with ideas about how everyone else should handle their businesses, a king-tier braggart, and a rap legend". Artwork The artwork for the album is a still frame from the music video for "Apeshit". It features two of Beyoncé's background dancers, Jasmine Harper and Nicholas “Slick” Stewart, at the Louvre—Harper is seen picking the hair of Stewart while standing in front of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Release and promotion On June 6, 2018, Beyoncé and Jay-Z embarked on the joint On the Run II Tour, a sequel to their 2014 On the Run Tour. At the end of their second show at London Stadium in London on June 16, 2018, Beyoncé announced to the crowd that the duo had a surprise before leaving the stage. Then, the music video for "Apeshit" played on the LED video screen onstage. Following the conclusion of the video, the words "ALBUM OUT NOW" came across the screen. Everything Is Love was subsequently released exclusively via Jay-Z's streaming service Tidal and all audience members received a free six-month trial subscription in order to be able to stream the album. The album was also made available for purchase on Tidal's online music store. The release was announced worldwide on the Beyoncé and Jay-Z's respective social media accounts with the artist of the album being monikered as the Carters. On the same day, the music video for the album's second track and lead single "Apeshit" was released on Beyoncé's official YouTube channel. It was directed by Ricky Saiz and filmed at the Louvre in Paris. On June 18, the album was made available across numerous other platforms, including iTunes Store, Apple Music, Deezer, Amazon Music, Napster, Google Play Music and Spotify. In its first week of release, Everything is Love debuted at number two on the US ''Billboard'' 200 behind 5 Seconds of Summer's Youngblood. It recorded 123,000 album-equivalent units, out of which 70,000 were pure album sales. It was Beyoncé's first studio album not to debut at number one on the Billboard 200, and Jay-Z's first album to miss the top spot since The Best of Both Worlds (2002). The album debuted on the chart after less than six full days of activity on Tidal, and four days of activity on all other digital retailers and streaming services. The following chart week, it dropped to number four while recording 59,000 album-equivalent units. In 2018, Everything is Love was ranked as the 70th most popular album of the year on the Billboard 200. Critical reception | MC = 80/100 | rev1 = AllMusic | rev1Score = | rev2 = The A.V. Club | rev2score = B+ | rev3 = The Daily Telegraph | rev3Score= | rev4 = Exclaim! | rev4Score= 9/10 | rev5 = The Guardian | rev5Score = | rev6 = The Independent | rev6score = | rev7 = NME | rev7Score = | rev8 = Pitchfork | rev8Score = 8.2/10 | rev9 = Rolling Stone | rev9Score = | rev10 = The Times | rev10Score = }} Everything is Love was met with rave reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 80, based on 22 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Reviewing the album for The New York Times, Joe Coscarelli said it "completes the Knowles-Carter conceptual trilogy"—referring to the previous releases of Lemonade and 4:44—"in an expert, tactical showing of family brand management". Music critic Nicholas Hautman of Us Weekly wrote: "It's clear from the very first listen that Beyoncé outshines her husband on much of the record, which really should have been marketed as 'Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z' rather than 'Beyoncé and Jay-Z' (or 'the Carters,' in this case). His verses are few and far between in comparison to hers, but it still somehow feels like a balanced body of work from two of the greatest artists of our time." In The Guardian, Petridis believed the album retreads braggadocio centering around the duo's wealth and excellence, with less musical daring, but still does so with likeable music, genuine wit, and energy. As per The Daily Telegraph music critic Neil McCormick pointed, "Everything Is Love certainly doesn’t have the musical expansiveness of Lemonade. There are neither ballads nor bangers, and not much in the way of melodic song construction at all. Rather, these are snappily repetitive beats on which the stars can put across their message as a form of hip hop conversation." For Variety, Jim Aswad described it as "solid and generally satisfying, but not the best from either." Will Hodgkinson of The Times reviewed track-by-track, stated: "Jay-Z is as dynamic as ever and the new, though Beyoncé demands attention on this surprise album, ... despite the ups and downs detailed on Beyoncé's Lemonade and Jay-Z's subsequent mea culpa 4:44. Instead they are coming out fighting, with all that fame and money making them defensive, even paranoid, while a mix of classic soul, hard-hitting hip-hop and slinky R&B." Pitchfork contributor Briana Younger wrote that the album "is a compromise between the spoils of Lemonade s war and the fruits of 4:44 s labor. Jay and Bey extend an invitation to join their very public vow-renewal victory lap because we now know what it costs to get here and how expensive having it all can be. It may not be collective liberation (and why should it be?), but it is theirs. When Beyoncé declares, 'We came and we saw and we conquered it all' on playful closer 'LOVEHAPPY,' it's her final exhale, her reclamation of her throne of love pulled straight from the tongue of colonizers. Within this complex, messy and beautifully black display, the Carters find absolution." Accolades } |- | Billboard | United States | 50 Best Albums of 2018 (ranked 10) | 2018 | |- | Complex | United States | The Best Albums of 2018 (ranked 7) | 2018 | |- | Esquire | United States | 20 Best Albums of 2018 (ranked 18) | 2018 | |- | Exclaim! | Canada | Exclaim! s Top 10 Hip-Hop Albums Best of 2018 (ranked 5) | 2018 | |- | Fopp | United Kingdom | Best Albums of 2018 (ranked 94) | 2018 | |- | Gaffa | Denmark | Årets Album 2018 (ranked 17) | 2018 | |- | HipHopDX | United States | The Best Rap Albums Of 2018 (ranked 2) | 2018 | |- | NME | United Kingdom | NME’s Albums Of The Year 2018 (ranked 91) | 2018 | | |- | NPR | United States | The 50 Best Albums Of 2018 (ranked 50) | 2018 | | |- | People | United States | The Top 10 Albums of the Year | 2018 | | |- | rowspan="2"| Rolling Stone | Argentina | Los mejores discos de 2018 (ranked 12) | 2018 | | |- | United States | 50 Best Albums of 2018 (ranked 48) | 2018 | |- | rowspan="2"| Uproxx | rowspan="2"| United States | The 50 Best Albums of 2018 (ranked 36) | 2018 | |- | Uproxx Music Critics Poll 2018: Albums (ranked 35) | 2018 | |- | Vibe | United States | 30 Best Albums of 2018 | 2018 | |- | XXL | United States | The 50 Best Hip-Hop Albums of 2018 | 2018 | { } |- | Danish GAFFA-Prisen Awards | Best International Album | | style="text-align:center;"| |- | Grammy Awards | Urban Contemporary Album | | style="text-align:center;"| |- |NAACP Image Awards | Outstanding Album | | | |- |U.K. music industry's Brit Awards | best international group | | |} Track listing Credits adapted from Beyoncé's official website, Tidal and the album's digital booklet. | extra1 = }} | length1 = 4:45 | title2 = Apeshit | writer2 = | extra2 = |Jay-Z |Stuart White }} | length2 = 4:24 | title3 = Boss | writer3 = | extra3 = |[[MeLo-X]] |Derek Dixie |White }} | length3 = 4:04 | title4 = Nice | writer4 = | extra4 = |Jay-Z }} | length4 = 3:54 | title5 = 713 | writer5 = | extra5 = |Fred Ball }} | length5 = 3:13 | title6 = Friends | writer6 = | extra6 = |Sevn Thomas |Ball }} | length6 = 5:44 | title7 = Heard About Us | writer7 = | extra7 = }} | length7 = 3:10 | title8 = Black Effect | writer8 = | extra8 = | length8 = 5:13 | title9 = LoveHappy | writer9 = | extra9 = }} | length9 = 3:49 }} | extra1 = }} | length1 = 3:33 }} * }} signifies a co-producer * }} signifies an additional producer * }} signifies a vocal producer Sample credits * "Apeshit" contains elements of an ASAP Rocky broadcast on Instagram Live. * "713" contains an interpolation of "Still D.R.E.", written by Melvin Charles Breeden, Shawn Carter, Scott Storch and Andre Romelle Young, and performed by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg; samples from "Sphinx Gate" and "The World It Softly Lulls", written by Paul Bender, Simon Mavin, Perrin Moss and Naomi Saalfield, and performed by Hiatus Kaiyote; and an interpolation of "The Light", written by Robert Caldwell, Norman Harris William, Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Bruce Malament and James Dewitt Yancey, and performed by Common. * "Heard About Us" contains an interpolation of "Juicy", written by Sean Puffy Combs, James Mtume, Jean-Claude Olivier and Christopher Wallace, and performed by The Notorious B.I.G. * "Black Effect" contains a sample of "Broken Strings", written by Jun Kozuki, and performed by Flower Travellin' Band. * "LoveHappy" contains a sample of "You Make My Life a Sunny Day", written by Eddie Campbell, Ernie Johnson and Pete James, and performed by Eddie & Ernie; elements of "Victory Is Certain" from APC Tracks Vol. 1, written by Bill Laswell, Jean Touitou and Thierry Planell; "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop)" written by Lonnie Lynn, Robert Ozuma, James Poyser, Raphael Saadiq, Glen Standridge and Erica Wright, and performed by Erykah Badu and Common; and samples from the Graham Central Station recording "The Jam", written by Larry Graham. Personnel Credits adapted from Beyoncé's official website, Tidal and the album's digital booklet. Musicians * Derek Dixie – string arrangement , horn arrangement , additional keys , additional horn arrangement * Chala Yancy – co-arrangement , strings * Nathalie Barrett-Mas – co-arrangement , strings * Crystal Alforque – co-arrangement , strings * Jessica McJunkins – co-arrangement , strings * Damien “Dammo” Farmer – bass guitar * Corbin Jones – co-arrangement , horns * Michael Jones – co-arrangement , horns * Christopher Gray – co-arrangement , horns * Christopher Johnson – co-arrangement , horns * Crystal Torres – co-arrangement , horns * Arnetta Johnson – co-arrangement , horns * Lessie Vonner – co-arrangement , horns * Peter Ortega – horns * Randy Ellis – horns * Richard Lucchese – horns * 808-Ray – additional programming * Pharrell – additional vocals * Quavo and Offset of Migos – additional vocals * Rory from Stone Love – additional vocals * Damian Marley – additional vocals * Ty Dolla Sign – additional vocals * Blue Ivy Carter – additional vocals * Dr. Lenora Antoinette Stines – additional vocals * Dre from Cool & Dre – additional vocals Production * Tyler Scott – strings engineering , recording , assistant mix engineering * Tony Maserati – mixing * Stuart White – mixing , recording * Gimel "Young Guru" Keaton – mixing , recording * Leslie Brathwaite – mixing * Chris Godbey – mixing * DJ Durel – recording * Mike Larson – recording * Zeph Sowers – recording * Dan Ewins – assistant mix engineering * Henri Davies – assistant mix engineering * Andy Maxell – assistant mix engineering * Adrien Crapanzano – assistant engineering * Marcus Locock – assistant engineering * Lester Mendoza – assistant recording engineering * Colin Leonard – mastering Charts Weekly charts Year-end charts Certifications Release history References External links * Category:2018 albums Category:Albums produced by Boi-1da Category:Albums produced by Cool & Dre Category:Albums produced by Illmind Category:Albums produced by Mike Dean (record producer) Category:Albums produced by Pharrell Williams Category:Beyoncé albums Category:Collaborative albums Category:Jay-Z albums Category:Roc Nation albums Category:Sony Music albums